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NATASHA
I wave my hands in a frenzied circle around the image of my face on the monitor screen. “You know what? I’m asking the questions now! What the hell is this all about? All of these pictures of me? Your ‘Fuck You, Dima’ folder? I want to know what it means, goddammit!”
Luka’s lips stretch into a tight line, his eyes murderously dark. “You shouldn’t have come in here.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry! It’s just that there’s a freaking killer smeared all over my room!” I hammer my fists against his chest. “Tell me why you have these pictures of me! What were you trying to do to Dima? And why am I the pawn in your sick little game?”
“I told you before that my family dealings are none of your business.”
“That was before I found evidence of you stalking me for two months!” I grab the sides of my head, my heart hammering faster and harder with every passing second. “I don’t even understand how you got some of those shots. How did I not realize you were even there?”
“Because I’m a fucking assassin, Natasha. It’s my job to be invisible.”
“But why?” Emotions pummel me from all sides — anger, confusion, helplessness, fear — and I don’t even know where to focus first. “You stalked me to get revenge on my father. You could have kidnapped me at any of those times when I was alone. Your little photo library documents my daily schedule, for Christ’s sake.”
Luka’s shoulders square. The muscles in his jaw twitch as I pepper him with questions he clearly doesn’t want to answer.
“Did Dima order you to follow me?”
“No.” He pushes past me, and with a sweep of his huge forearm, sends the monitor flying off the desk. It hits the floor with a loud crash, and I shudder at the sound of the animalistic growl that follows. Then Luka grabs the keyboard and flings it across the room before storming out the door.
I watch him walk away, fisting his hair. Nikita appears and looks between us before trotting alongside his master. My mouth hangs open and I slowly shake my head. I can’t even wrap my head around what I just witnessed. I glance at the now-empty desk, and a nagging feeling knots my gut. Those weren’t surveillance photos. He wasn’t just watching me to plot a kidnapping.
“Luka,” I call out. When he doesn’t respond, I run out of the room toward the kitchen.
Drawers open and slam shut. I slowly peek around the wall just in case he’s about to throw something in my direction. I stand there for a few seconds, watching him go Godzilla on his own place. I’ve seen glimpses of Luka releasing his pent-up rage before, but it’s never been quite this intense. Or destructive.
It’s like the beast is out and he can’t suck him back inside. Somehow, I triggered this, and I just want to know why because it’s not just about me being on his computer.
I take a few steps toward him. I reach out to gingerly graze his arm when he finally stops terrorizing his kitchen. A shock of electricity shoots up my own arm and explodes in my chest at the connection generated by our collective heat.
“Don’t touch me. It’ll be bad for both of us.”
“I don’t care. I just want answers. I’ve seen and heard enough to know that there is a lot going on here. You stole my life away from me, and I deserve to know the truth about why.”
With one swift move, he backs me against the counter. A shock of breath escapes my lips when he presses against me. His fingers wind around my wrists and squeeze. Luka’s ice blue eyes fire off sparks of desire, the same ones that coil in my core. He is so tight against me, I can hear the thunder of his heart against my chest.
Warmth pools between my thighs as his grip on my hands crushes my own together behind my back so that I can’t possibly slip away with any hope to evade him.
“You came for me.” My pulse slams against my throat. “You pretended to be Dima, but you came, not him. Why? And why did you watch me for all of that time?”
His jaw tightens and a rush of color floods his face.
He’s angry, there’s no doubt about that.
I just want to know who he’s so angry at, and how I fit into his mania.
“I kept those pictures to remind myself of what I would do to you when I got the chance. I wanted to show your father that he wasn’t going to get away with screwing me over the way he did, and that you were the answer, the way I was going to get my revenge against him.”
“By snatching me and handing me off to your brother?”
“That wasn’t part of my original plan…mine, not my father’s.” He loosens his hands, backing away the slightest bit. “Nobody ordered me to watch you when I’d come up with that plan. But after seeing you, how you were with those kids, with your friends, hell, even with strangers…” His voice drifts off and he moves farther away from me. “I knew I couldn’t go through with it.”
“What were you going to do...kill me?” I can barely squeak out the words. “To get back at my father?”
His spine stiffens. “I don’t know what I was going to do. I just knew I needed to make him feel pain.” A mess of emotions scuffle in the turbulent pools of blue. “The more I watched you, the more I knew I couldn’t follow through with it.”
“Why? What changed?”
